


Look Back at Yourself

by Re_Set



Category: Hilda (Cartoon)
Genre: And Hilda has serious self-trust issues, Angst, Anxiety, Because they're my comfort characters and I say so, Family, Family Feels, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff primarily in chapters 2 and 5, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Johanna has severe parental anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:13:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29164749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Re_Set/pseuds/Re_Set
Summary: It's been a month now since the night Hilda was grounded for lying to her mother, and two weeks since the night she nearly said goodbye to Twig.Now, Johanna's beginning to realize just how unusual Hilda’s irritability has been in this period of time, and is beginning to worry if her daughter even wants her around anymore.Johanna knows she won’t be able to just talk her out of it every time, and wishes she could do a little act of kindness. One that would remind her daughter that she’ll always have a piece of home wherever she goes, and rekindle a flame she fears is beginning to fade between them.
Relationships: Hilda & Johanna | Hilda's Mum
Comments: 7
Kudos: 35





	1. Realization

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for episodes 7, 8, and 9 of the 2nd season of Hilda, as well as minor references to several episodes of the show, mostly in season 2. I highly recommend you watch the series up until "The Deerfox" or later before reading this.

“Bye Hilda! Have a good day at school today,” said Hilda’s mum, Johanna, in her usual jolly tone. The mother of one was all set up in her usual red turtleneck and brown jeans, letting the whole world know that she’s ready for a new day of art commissions on her plate.

It was another day where the blue-haired adventurer in the making set aside her old habits for a few hours and got ready for some time in the classroom to get her brain jogging. Any normal day and Hilda would reply to her mum with an equally joyous “Thanks mum! You too,” or something along those lines. Instead, after Johanna bent down to give her daughter a little kiss on her forehead, Hilda gave a weak hug back, smothered Twig in a flurry of pets, and spoke in a ho-hum mannerism, “I will Mum. Thanks,” before she casually jogged out of the room and headed outside.

Johanna started to get worried, and she could tell that she wasn’t alone about that. Upon hearing Twig’s faint whimpers as he approached her, she crouched down to gently scritch the white deerfox between his little antlers as she began thinking to herself.

The past few weeks have been a wild roller coaster between Hilda, Johanna, and Twig. As far as she remembers, this started on the night that Hilda returned home after her supposed “Sparrow Scout activity” cleaning up at the beach. Just thinking about what transpired that evening made her wince — both in raging disappointment at Hilda for blatantly lying to her at such an inopportune time, and directly at herself even thinking about lashing out at her daughter the way she did. She’s not gonna deny that what Hilda did was right in any way; she had been pushing her buttons several times like that since they first moved to Trolberg, and she simply couldn’t tolerate it after Hilda’s life was put in danger with the likelihood of a sea monster attacking the very harbour she said she’d be at; she knew full well that she reacted no differently than any other concerned parent would. However, a part of her still feels guilty about it all. Maybe it’s because of all the funny looks and verbal reactions over her close relations with “that weird kid from the woods” that seemingly all the new faces greet her with, but the last thing that Johanna would ever wish to do is anything to make her daughter feel like her adventuring habits are a burden to anybody, let alone those she loves the most. Just hearing Hilda that night, storming off to her room, clearly upset over something she loves to pieces, was enough to get back into Johanna again.

Snapping back to reality, Johanna never even noticed the traces of tears lightly running down her face until she felt the tickling sensation of Twig licking them away.

Oh, right, Twig! Much like her kid, Johanna loved the little guy to no end — but the unimaginable event that occurred between herself, Hilda, and the deerfox just a couple weeks ago changed so much for all of them. On one hand, it was borderline magical finally knowing where he had come from, a question that has infested her brain since the day he suddenly showed up on the cliffside to save his new best friend’s life. On the other, she couldn’t possibly ignore how much of a mental toll the whole story took on her poor daughter. She’s seen Hilda upset and sad now and then; but to see so much guilt, defeat, and genuine fear for the future build up in her innocent world would have been enough to break any heart. Johanna figured this wouldn’t have even been so bad had she known just what to do, but she couldn’t possibly have. She never had to deal with the sudden loss of a pet or close family member, so the best she felt like she could do was be by her daughter’s side and hope for the best outcome.

At this point is where Johanna felt the realization hit her like a brick.

“Are Hilda and I starting to drift apart?” She looked back at those recent memories to make sure she wasn’t going crazy. The more she thought it through, however, the more the idea began to make sense. The two of them have seemed rather distant in recent months, starting with the Safety Patrol trip Hilda had earned through her school essay, when Johanna had started questioning Hilda’s tendency to not let her know about her adventures. Since then, the memories she can think of between the two grow fewer and further between. Hilda had little to say about her three-day Sparrow Scouts camping trip with Frida and David; outright ditched her for most of Eric Ahlberg’s speech at the Bell Ceremony, which she remembers ending in a total trainwreck; and the only two memories she has of the two together since they are the search for Twig at their old home, and the high tensions the two of them shared following the night she grounded her.

Her conclusion came to a peak when Johanna remembered something personal to her; her scrapbook of shared memories between herself, Hilda, and Twig. Miraculously, this scrapbook was one of the few items to remain mostly untouched after the giant crushed their old cabin, which still deeply confuses her no matter what way she thinks it through. She keeps it locked away in a drawer under the living room TV, choosing to take it out on rare occasions to make sure it stays stable. To Johanna right now, this was one of those occasions to take the book out. She carefully examined the pages and found out what she hoped she would be wrong about; there aren’t any photos of the two after their move to Trolberg. This news completely shocked Johanna. It wasn’t like she was unable to capture such memories, for one of the first things Johanna bought after they settled into their apartment was a new camera for such capture-worthy moments.

Johanna gently placed her book back into its drawer and sat down to breathe for a few seconds. She still believed she had to have been overreacting. She loves her daughter to the end of the world, and she knows all too well that Hilda has the same feelings for her. After a few minutes of thinking, she got up and headed straight to her daughter’s room. There’s one other person in this apartment that she knows Hilda would tell her stories to. One who writes down every detail of every anecdote he gets told. If there was anyone she knew who was aware of Hilda’s day as much as she did, it was the other little guy living in her daughter’s clock!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh dang, you actually made it to the end of my first chapter!
> 
> So yeah, hello AO3. I've been making AMV's to the world for far too long and have decided to take my creative mind to other forms of art. This is my first time writing a multi-chapter fanfic for a fandom I deeply care about, so I certainly can't expect this to be perfect. Anybody who wishes to say a thing or two about my work that'll help make it better, go right ahead. I'm all ears.
> 
> After chapter 2, I plan to release a new chapter for this fic every four to seven days before I'm finished with this. I hope you enjoy reading my first fic as I have been messing around with ideas and creating this story!


	2. Reflection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johanna decides that her semi-roommate Alfur is the best person she can ask regarding her daughter's recent behaviour. This little talk they had ended up providing her more answers than she had anticipated.

Alfur, the Lilliputian resident Trolberg elf, hadn’t realized until recently just how draining it can honestly be to have a generic, boring day where nothing happens. Perhaps it’s because all of his experiences with Hilda have desensitized his poor and innocent soul, but a portion of him wished more than ever for occurrences to come about him that are halfway interesting enough to report back to his old home. He’s figured that writing about common Trolberg sights has taken its course, and now spends much of his time away from Hilda and her friends by pampering Peppercorn — his even more minuscule pet nitten he received as a parting gift from his old village — and enjoying the mountain view outside Hilda’s bedroom window, a sight that remained whimsical to the tiny figure, but even the most beautiful imagery will start to get dull after a long while.

Suffice it to say, Alfur was surprised to hear a slight creaking noise coming from Hilda’s bedroom door while he was feeding Peppercorn her breakfast, but welcomed the friendly company nonetheless.

“Alfur? Are you around?” He recognized that slightly faint, familiar, feminine tone from anywhere. The elf always appreciated how Johanna would attempt to keep her volume a bit lower to respect his more delicate hearing when compared to usual, more tolerant human hearing sensitivity. It wasn’t always necessary, but he’s grateful that such a little thing to anyone else matters enough to her that she never forgets to do it for him. He keeps having to remind himself to thank Johanna for being so courteous.

“Hello there Johanna! What brings you over here on this swell morning,” Alfur gracefully asks as he twirls outside the clock door.

His jolly demeanour came to a bit of a halt upon noticing the odd look on the mother’s face. Alfur liked to think he was good at understanding people through subtle facial cues he quickly glanced at, but Johanna’s face seemed… odd to him. She didn’t look completely sad or upset, but there was a small wave of uncertainty he could read in her eyes that was practically screaming out that something is bothering her. Still, Alfur liked to believe he was an open and fair soul as well and refused to assume anything bad until Johanna made it clear that something wasn’t right.

“I’m just worried about something, and you’re the best person I know I can come to for help,” Johanna said with Twig following closely behind.

Just like that, the alarms were ringing vigorously in Alfur’s head.

“Alright, I hear you loud and clear,” he stated as he climbed down to Hilda’s nightstand, with Twig quickly following up to give Alfur a spot to rest on. “Why don’t you sit down and ask away?”

“Thank you Alfur. I honestly owe you this one,” Johanna murmured following a quiet sigh of relief. Sitting down on Hilda’s bed, she introduced, “You see, it’s about-”

“Hilda?”

“... H-How did you…?”

“I think I’ve known you long enough to understand what and who you care about the most,” finished Alfur with a smirk, equal parts confident and bashful.

“Well, that’s kinda sweet…” noted Johanna with a faint, embarrassed smirk of her own. “Anyway, has Hilda been acting kind of… I don’t quite know the best way to say it… ‘distant’ from you lately? It’s like she hasn’t shared the same love for adventuring, or her friends, or really anything that makes her who she is; not since a couple of weeks ago when we nearly said goodbye to Twig.” Another small whimper could be heard from the deerfox in question, neither party fully understanding what in particular made him feel so bad.

“You know what,” Alfur began to ponder, “now that you’re mentioning it, Hilda has seemed a bit off compared to her usual energized self. Give me a minute.” As quickly as he could, he hurried back inside the clock and scurried back out with a short stack of papers in his arms. “I don’t often write about peers and other people without their explicit permission, but I have noticed Hilda being less animated and more irritable for a while now, even before the incident with Twig. I’d say I started noticing it on the night you grounded her.”

Johanna briefly grimaced again. Thankfully for her, Alfur didn’t seem to notice. “I’ll be right back Alfur, I should get a magnifying glass from my drawing desk.”

“Alright,” Alfur responded, ignoring Johanna’s potential insult towards his penmanship. When she returned with the magnifier and skimmed through the pages, he continued to explain, “If I had to describe Hilda’s behaviour in the last month or so with one word, I’d probably choose ‘casual.’ She’s never come off as angry or sad when she’s here. She’s gone through her usual routine of getting ready for school and Sparrow Scout meetings, preparing to go outside with David and Frida, and spending her usual time with you in the late evening. She’s acting more like, from what I’ve heard passersby say, a “normal girl.” In fact, she’s still quite happy much of the time, especially when Twig is by her side, which I started jotting down in my notes a couple of weeks ago.”

That last part of Alfur’s description caught Johanna’s attention the most. “Quite happy… when Twig is by her side,” she played in her head a couple of times.

“How ‘happy’ are we talking about here,” questioned Johanna with a hint more concern in her voice than previously.

“Well, if you want to know, she’s been quite protective of Twig since the incident you told me about back at our old home. You do have to forgive me, my memory is a bit fuzzy on that. I remember her briefly informing me just how scary the whole thing was to her, would you agree with that?”

“Oh, I absolutely agree with that sentiment,” Johanna responded with more certainty than before in this discussion. “We were both nearly chased off of a massive cliffside after a wild wolf tried to viciously attack Hilda, who only eventually lost due to Twig coming back and distracting them long enough for Hilda to get away. As well, Hilda _did_ briefly say goodbye to Twig, expecting him to go back to his family. After all the dangerous adventures she’s been through in her life, I can easily say that the moment she believed her best friend was gone was the most afraid I’ve ever seen her.” The aforementioned deerfox paid attention to the end of her summary and let out another subtle weep while snuggling closer with Alfur. Both he and Johanna suspected that Twig was starting to feel rather guilty for scaring his close friend so much. Both gently pet him to try and comfort him.

This predicament was slowly beginning to piece itself together in Johanna’s head. She never saw herself as a professional psychologist, but all of the years she’s spent looking over her wild daughter has taught her a lot about what is and isn't right for each person. She’s heard enough people judge both herself and her daughter for how “weird” they are; be it school kids yelling “witch” in her direction, or other parents making snide remarks over her being a single mother. The series of events recently has clearly taken as much of a mental toll on her daughter as it has herself, and she’s slowly become deathly afraid that older memories from their earlier days in the city are beginning to affect Hilda.

“Hello? Yoo-hoo! Johanna?” She heard a blurry voice likewise to that of the elf she was discussing with.

“Huh? What’s going on?”

Alfur readily responded, “I don’t know. After you answered my question, you seemingly spaced out for a moment. Were you thinking about something?”

There were a few good seconds of silence in the air as Johanna struggled a little bit to properly answer without making the elf more worried. After thinking of what to say, she slowly got up and told Alfur and Twig to “stay put for a minute. There’s something I want to show you.”

Upon coming back to the room, she came in carrying something new to Alfur; the same dense scrapbook that she was looking through just some minutes ago. She sat back down onto the bed and began describing to him what he was looking at.

“This, Alfur, is a familial scrapbook that I began working on shortly after Hilda was born. Every time she and I, and eventually Twig had a great moment together, or an important story we wouldn’t want to forget, I would always take a picture of those moments and place them right in this book. There are dozens of pleasant memories that I believed helped us all mould into who we are nowadays.” Johanna turned the page and pointed to a certain series of pictures she especially holds close. “Here’s the moment Hilda first saw a woff migration in action. She was about four when this happened, and I’m sure it was the moment she knew how much she loved nature and the outside world.” She happily chuckled and turned to another image. “Her first proper snowman. By the time she was seven, she always wanted to make a perfect snowman that wouldn’t fall apart. She tried for years to make it to her liking. The way she squealed and celebrated after putting the nose up was the most adorable thing I’ve ever laid my eyes on until then.” For one more time, she pointed at a picture in the book; the one that means the most to her. “Oh my, this one,” she paused for a moment to stifle a sniff. “This picture will always hold a special place in my heart. It was taken the night that Hilda and I took Twig into our cabin.” At the hearing of his name, the deerfox got up and jumped into Johanna's lap, taking a closer look at the picture she was talking about. “To see another critter care so much about Hilda after all the heart she poured into every other animal she came across, it made me the happiest mum in the world to see my little girl have somebody she could call a friend.” Her vision got a bit blurry from the water building up in the corners of her eyes, but she still noticed something in one of the pictures pointing towards the ground.

“Wait a minute, Alfur?”

“Oh, yes?” It took him a quick second to respond after realizing that he was starting to get a bit emotionally driven.

“I’ve never noticed this before,” she noted. “Is that your little elf village in the background here?”

Alfur whisked over to the book to analyze the picture Johanna was pointing at. “Oh wow, that is my old village! Did my culture never show up in your photos back then?” 

“As far as I’m now aware, apparently not,” she answered with a bit of confusion lingering in her inflexion. “I guess even our memories truly will alter when we’re shown a new outlook on life.”

After a few more moments of wandering around the book, sharing their laughs and telling their own stories (Johanna mostly being _very_ grateful that Hilda wasn’t around to feel embarrassed by the old photos), she decided that she had to talk to Hilda. She wants to help her child before her apprehension and fear get the better of her. “Alfur,” she acknowledged.

“Yes?”

“Thank you so very much for helping me figure out what I should do for Hilda! If I want her to know that I’m there for her and will never stop loving her, I need to stop letting these anxieties get the best of me and let her know that I’m worried. I’m going to talk things out with her the moment she gets back from school; let her know that I don’t want to be somebody she’s afraid of.”

“Johanna?” Alfur acknowledged back. As she turned to face him, he responded, “Whatever you want to help Hilda with, I’m with you all the way and then some! I may not know every detail between you two, but I know that no hard work going into fantastic parenting like yours should go unnoticed, and getting to her will be a great way to help rekindle the flame you fear is fading.”

Blushing a bit after the “fantastic parenting” remark, Johanna closed the book and got up off the bed. She knows she’ll need plenty of mental preparation to calmly talk to her daughter about their issues, so she wishes to waste no time pouring every inch of her heart into this. Plus, she also knows she’s still got plenty of commissions she’s been stalling a bit on, which she believes will help her mind stay calm. As she was beginning to walk towards the door, she heard the elf frantically call her out, “Johanna, wait a minute!”

“Oh. Yes, Alfur?”

“If you wish to make Hilda feel more accepted again, I want you to try doing a small act of kindness. Something that you believe will brighten her world, even if it seems like an insignificant detail to most other parents. Think of the way you lower your volume a bit for me to listen to you more easily. It’s a small thing, but helps make my day just a bit brighter every time you do it. Thank you very much, by the way, for doing that. I’ve been meaning to express my gratitude about that for months now, but never knew the best time to do it until today.”

With one last timid grin to give, she graciously thanked Alfur for the little advice he gave, guided Twig back to the living room, and sat down for a hard day of drawing ahead.

“You’ll be okay Hilda, I promise,” she says out loud before putting down her pencil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact about this fic, it initially started as a silly one-shot one night about Johanna doing something kind for Hilda that reminds her of their old home in the woods to make her feel better about another homesick phase. I ended up having so much fun evolving my idea that it's now become a full-fledged fic that I'm dedicating several hours into.
> 
> I guess the human mind really does hold more power and imagination than we all simply believe.


	3. The Voice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johanna begins to realize that Hilda hasn't come back home yet, even though the sun is starting to set. Deciding that she has no time to lose, she puts the matter into her own hands and looks for Hilda herself, finding a potentially life-changing gift along the way.

Johanna hadn’t realized until the light in the room began to glow a subtle orange just how many hours she had put into her work. She knew she had plenty of commissions sent her away — a solid majority of them being different bells — but if she was aware earlier in the morning just how specific many of the requests were, she would’ve contemplated skipping the whole talk with Alfur and gotten straight to work. Had she not taken the occasional break to eat or take care of Twig, she would’ve completely lost track of the time all day. Upon noticing the darker shade the room slowly took, she ultimately decided a good break was in order. She sat up and groaned to herself “Criminy! I don’t want to see another bell for the rest of my life after this week!” After standing up, she started to notice how quiet the whole apartment was the whole time, even in recent hours after Hilda should’ve stopped home. She turned to her side and noticed the time on the clock. 

17:23

“Huh, that’s certainly odd,” she noted to herself. As far as she remembers, school ends for Hilda at 15:00. Even when she isn’t normally home in the late afternoon, the least she does is quickly drop by the apartment to grab her things and tell Johanna how her day went. She figured that nothing bad happened at school today, or else she would have gotten a call from the district. Could Hilda have come home already and kept quiet to not distract Johanna from her work? Given how considerate her daughter has been regarding her work lately, this idea made sense to her. She strolled over to her daughter’s room, hoping that her theory is correct. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t see Hilda anywhere. “Alfur,” she gently half-asked, half-demanded for his attention.

Alfur peeped his head outside the door of his clock and responded, “Yes, Johanna?”

“Have you seen Hilda at all in the last couple of hours? I’m afraid I may have missed her after she came back from school.”

“To be honest, no I haven’t. In fact, I was getting ready to head out and ask you the same thing,” was all he had time to say before he heard the door close, followed by a moderate - _thunk_ \- coming from the other side without as much as an “okay” for a reply.

Already concerned about Hilda’s well being, Alfur’s answer to her question began to terrify Johanna. If this was any other day, she would’ve pushed Hilda’s absence aside as another crazy experience that she didn’t bother to tell her about, but her daughter’s aloof behaviour and minimal zeal have already made her feel uneasy. The last thing she wanted to happen was not to have a clue where the poor kid has gone off to.

“No, no, no,” she quietly, hastily repeated to herself as her eyes began to irrigate again. “Where could she have possibly gone off to now?!”

As worry continued to overwhelm Johanna, all she could think about was the same sense of dread that swamped her waiting for Hilda to come home on the night the Kraken nearly attacked the harbour. She’d never want to admit it to Hilda, but the contempt and anger that she expressed to her were far from the first emotions to sweep through her that evening.

* * *

When she received the notice from the Raven Leader that afternoon that there was no beach cleanup activity that day, she was already displeased with her daughter’s lying to her to skip out on the picnic she had planned. Upon overhearing the news on the TV about the Kraken being reported to attack Safety Patrol near the harbour in question, she felt a blinding fusion of fury and panicked despair swell around her. Less than a year earlier, had she dealt with a similar rush of anxiety over potentially losing Hilda after the snowstorm. Despite other parents in Trolberg questioning her authority as the single mum of a rather wild kid, nothing in the world pained her more than the feeling that she did something wrong to warrant Hilda’s unruly attributes. After losing Hilda to the snowstorm, a sense of dread began to form in the back of her mind. This dread formed a voice that told her that she was unfit to parent Hilda as much as she claims to care. A voice that tells her that she’s pushing Hilda away and she’s too tenacious to get it through to her. She was able to let this voice go after Hilda returned to the apartment later the following day.

When she learned the truth about her daughter’s intentions that evening, the voice came back. This time, the voice made her feel worse than unfit; it made her feel like a threat. Every time Johanna scolded or punished Hilda for her tendencies, she felt like the other parents who shamed and ridiculed her and Hilda for their odder tendencies compared to usual Trolberg residents. She knew that she did the right thing that night by grounding her, but after she heard Hilda slam her door shut, she momentarily heard the voice again. It told her clearly _“You are a part of the problem. You’re making her feel unwelcome in Trolberg. You’re only driving her away from you, and she won’t love you forever.”_ This voice played in her head for hours the next day, only beginning the fade away when she made up with Hilda that afternoon.

Since that day, however, that voice still creeps in now and then. It’s never been as bad as it’s been the night she grounded her, but she still hears it, and it’s never easy to ignore.

* * *

As Johanna calmed down and let the memory fade away in her head, she heard a subdued - _tap, tap, tap_ \- from the other end of the door.

“Um, Johanna? I hate to be a bother, but you kinda locked the door on me, and I still can’t reach the keyhole from anywhere in here.”

Turning towards the door and reaching to twist the knob, Johanna briskly scooped up the elf and atoned “Oh God Alfur, I’m really sorry about that. I-I just wish that...” she hesitated to finish her statement after a few sniffs and quick breaths, “that I didn’t endlessly feel like I’m failing my Hilda!”

“Wait, huh?! What on Earth gave you the belief that you were possibly failing her?!”

“It’s just that- I-” she paused for nearly a moment to try and regain her composure. “It feels like she’s so scared of me. She’s been spending less time with me than ever before, and seldom tells me anymore how her days go when we do meet up. I’m beginning to worry that Hilda sees me as a threat to herself. And if I can be honest, I feel like she has every right to see me as such.” She hung her head down, now letting her tears freely fall to the floor.

After one more moment of silence, Alfur decided he had enough of hearing Johanna ridicule herself and put his foot down. “Johanna, I want you to listen to me real close because I’m only saying this once.”

After he finished his sentence, Johanna looked up at the elf’s sincere, almost upset look on his face.

“I can positively tell, just by looking at the fear in your eyes, just how much Hilda means to you. No failure of a mum would be this scared about the safety and happiness of their child, no failure of a mum would do everything in the best of her ability to keep her kid safe from the honest dangers of the world around them, and no failure of a mum would give away the whole world like you have to make their kid as happy as you’ve made Hilda. Don’t you DARE look at me in the eyes and tell me you’re a bad mum! So what if you’ve made a few ill-fated mishaps along the way? That’s the unfortunate truth about a job like parenting. You have to make some decisions you don’t like. You have to make some decisions Hilda won’t like. You may not fully understand this right now, but every big change you make in Hilda's life is a big change for yours, too. If there’s one thing I’ve noticed while recording the adventures you and Hilda tell me, it’s that you’ve grown up and learned about yourself just as much as she has about herself in the time we’ve lived in Trolberg.” Johanna attempted to open her mouth and object to Alfur’s statements, but he halted her and continued to explain, “I know how much it must hurt to not be as happy living here as it did living in the woods. You miss the open air, the easygoing atmosphere, and having all the free time in the world to spend with Hilda, don’t you?“

Johanna sniffled and lightly nodded her head up and down, “Mm-hm…”

“Have you talked to Hilda much about how homesick you feel too?”

“Honestly,” Johanna sheepishly replied, “No, I haven’t. I hoped that that staying strong and maintaining a bright attitude about this place would have inspired her to keep her head up when the world looked down on her.”

Alfur gave a quick deep breath and began to pour his heart out one last time. “I think it’s amazing that you wish to be a positive role model for the girl like this, but right now, I think it’s vital to let Hilda know that you feel scared too. You feel beaten down, and Hilda has to know that it’s okay to feel as defeated. I don’t wish to go into intense detail, but many of the worst moments of my own life have been some of the most important, because I had someone else with me to share my pains with. They and I learned our coping mechanisms and shared to each other the little things that made our days that littlest bit brighter. If you’re truly afraid that Hilda’s suffering, then don’t let her suffer alone. Turn this moment into an important lesson for both of you.”

It was a long, hard minute of pondering everything Alfur had just said to her. After thinking about what to do about this, she speedily carried her hand up to her cheek (Much to Alfur’s surprise, almost getting blown off by the velocity) and gave him the best hug she possibly could. “Thank you Alfur. Thank you so much for everything,” she struggled to speak out while nearly choking on her tears. “I know what I’m going to do now.”

The elf got up on his feet, hugged her cheek back, and asked: “What is it?”

“I’m going to find Hilda myself. She needs me, and I’m not gonna waste any more time making her feel lost and alone!” Johanna placed Alfur on the kitchen table, grabbed her coat and beanie, and headed toward the apartment door. “One more thing Alfur. If Tontu asks about dinner, let him know what’s going on. I may be home quite late.” This was the last thing she said before closing the door and heading to her car.

“Uh, okay Johanna. I’ll try my best.” Now alone, Alfur glanced around the apartment awkwardly. He knew he had a long night of reporting ahead of him.

* * *

It had been almost an hour since Johanna began searching the city for her child, and she was starting to lose hope that she’d be able to find Hilda on her own. She made a stop at every location she knew in Trolberg and combed through the places she’d expect Hilda to be. She looked around the school, the Sparrow Scouts cabin, the library, and several Safety Patrol buildings across the city; with no sightings of Hilda or any eyewitness reports. The sun had begun to finish setting for the night, and a darkening blue was beginning to shadow the city in. As Johanna began entering the downtown sector, she heard an ominous force begin to shroud her earshot once again. It was the voice.

Johanna knew that she couldn’t stop the voice now that it had come out again, and she didn’t want to let it impair her driving ability and cause a wreck, so before it got too loud, she took to the nearest parking lot she could and let her voice play out.

_“What do you think you’re doing,”_ asked the echoing tone. _“Isn’t it obvious now that Hilda doesn’t need you? Knowing her, she’s probably run off again, back into the sea or outside the wall, living the dream life you kept taking away from her. Just face it, she’s had enough of you and...”_

Unexpectedly, Johanna’s voice began to fade away until she no longer heard it, to be replaced by, “The woods? Birds chirping? Trees rustling in the wind? The end of town isn’t for miles. How am I hearing...” She interrupted herself as she looked up and found the source of the sound. She realized that she parked at the local hardware store, and there was a new item being displayed ahead of the front entrance.

Squinting her eyes a bit, the item appeared to be a little white box, plugged into an electrical socket. The sounds of nature she heard seem to have come from the little speakers built all around the box. She got out of the car and paced toward the item to get a closer look at the little details. There were two dials on the front of the little machine. One smaller one adjusted the volume of the noise and appeared to have been turned all the way up. The second, larger dial had a small number of icons surrounding it and was currently pointed to an icon of a couple of small trees.

“Uh, excuse me, mister,” Johanna asked the young man behind the machine, wearing a proper hardware store uniform. “May I take a quick look at this device?”

“Sure thing, ma’am,” the man casually responded. “This nifty machine is designed to produce a variety of relaxing sounds, which can help the user calm down and sleep easier every night. It’s been selling out fast in Trolberg, so decide fast if you want one of these.”

Johanna largely ignored the man’s advertising of the product and looked at the icons, of which there was five total surrounding the dial. One symbol was of a small heart, just beside that of the trees. When Johanna cautiously turned the dial towards it, the machine stopped producing the sounds of the forest and was replaced by a slow, steady, and muffled heartbeat. The next icon, a tiny lightning bolt, played the sonority of quiet, distant thunder rolling. Following the lightning was an icon of a tiny piano, which executed a brief and looping piano sonata. The final image was of a steady spectrogram, which gave way to pure, gentle white noise.

Hearing the steady sounds, especially the nostalgic resonance of the gentle forest, reminded Johanna of what Alfur had told her earlier that afternoon. She distinctly remembers Alfur suggesting to her that a little act of kindness, even one that seems simple on the surface, can make a world of difference if it hits the right person. To her, a simple device like this; one that her daughter could turn on and immediately be greeted with a quiet, calming noise that reminds her of simpler times, and let her know that there’s always going to be a little piece of her old home that she can take with her anywhere she goes; this is exactly what she believes her daughter needs. Johanna stood up and made up her mind.

“Is this item still in stock,” she kindly, but hastily asked the salesperson.

“I believe that we have a few on hand. These should be in aisle 5, with the other handy indoor equipment.”

“Thank you so much for your help sir! You’re gonna make a child so happy tonight!” Wasting no time, she quickly made way for the front entrance of the store.

Making it to the 5th aisle, Johanna understood that the man wasn’t joking about the item’s demand. Only three of these machines were left on the shelf, and it appears that one of the boxes has been peeked into where the tape wasn’t keeping it shut. Johanna noted the price of the machine; roughly 300 kroner.* This price was a bit steep compared to her usual liking, and she only just had enough change in her wallet to cover the cost. If circumstances weren’t so dire to her right now, she would’ve happily saved up for this, among other items for Hilda, since The Trolberg Winter Festival was only a month away. Alas, she didn’t believe the time was on her side at this moment, so Johanna swallowed her pride and picked up one of the three machines left in stock.

While waiting in the checkout line, Johanna believed she saw a familiar figure outside the store window, just in the corner of her eye. It appeared that it was, “Hilda!” She accidentally let slip out loud, thankful that only a couple of other customers looked in her direction. It appears that her daughter was still in her school uniform, so she knew for sure that Hilda had not arrived home yet. She appeared to have had her head facing down, and there were a couple of tears streaming by her face, and she was sprinting towards the opposite direction from the store, ending at… “The harbour…” Johanna apprehended in her head. She never decided on checking out the beach at the end of the city, figuring that nobody would have a reason to be there so late into the day.

Before she knew it, Johanna was at the front of the line, with the cashier asking for her item. “Oh, sorry,” she said aloud after handing it over.

After checking out the item and placing it in her bag, Johanna walked out of the store, and headed straight to her car, knowing exactly where she had to go next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *For those unaware, Krone is the unit of currency used in several Scandinavian countries; such as Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. It always bugged me that the show that largely takes inspiration from Scandinavian lore and culture used USD as a currency. Even the original graphic novels used European terms and imagery, so I decided to be a big stickler and use the traditional Scandinavian currency.
> 
> Also, 300 kroner is equivalent to about 35 USD.
> 
> Also, no, I did not intend to write something so angsty when I started working on this. I just had a silly, fluffy idea in my head and then my brain said: "You know what would be funny?" I'm honestly a bit proud of my ability to write characters in such distressing situations while still attempting to keep them in character.
> 
> One more thing, I'm changing the rating on this fic from G to T, because I doubt that my depiction of anxiety and panic attacks are really "appropriate" for a general audience. If people think this isn't extreme enough for a T rating, I'll set it back to G.
> 
> Anywho, that's all for now. Get ready for Chapter 4 in a few days. It's likely gonna hurt, and I'm not sorry in advance.


	4. Anxiety

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johanna finally finds Hilda after hours of endless worry. However, this moment may the most difficult in her life, as the voice in her head and the goodness in her heart are fighting against each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was listening to the soundtrack of the Ori games as a source of inspiration for writing this chapter and one of the tracks, ["Separated by the Storm"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfe6z6MbQpQ&) from the Will of the Wisps, really got to me as I was writing the final few paragraphs between the two main characters. I totally recommend you listen to this track as the talk between them plays on.

It’s been roughly twenty minutes since Johanna bought the sound machine from the hardware store and drove off in the direction of Trolberg’s pier. The beach was the most interesting thing in the direction she saw Hilda running off to, and anyone who knows Hilda knows that she’ll always gravitate towards the most interesting location in her general direction. During the drive to the beach, Johanna had nearly forgotten about the gift she just bought and hoped that when she stopped her car at the pier, her daughter would be there, waiting for her to be there.

By the time Johanna saw the pier and stopped her car, the time on her watch showed 18:50, and the sun had almost completely set over the now-magenta horizon. After noticing just how late it truly was, she closed her eyes, held her breath, and hoped that when she turned her head towards the shore, Hilda would be there. She looked to her side, opened her eyes, and…

There she was. Sitting near the edge of the dock. Johanna was swept with a tidal wave of relief that she finally found her daughter, okay and safe in the city. That relief faded fast, though, as she felt another all-too-familiar feeling of rage storm up inside of her. She couldn’t even begin to describe just how utterly furious she was with Hilda for completely neglecting to let her know where she was after school, without as much as a single phone call telling her where she was planning to be.

She tried to steady her breathing before going to confront Hilda, but the more she attempted to maintain herself, the more her lungs fought to breathe. For the first time that night, she felt her fear grow even worse, and the voice came back. This time, the voice had become so coarse and distorted, that she could barely understand what it was telling her. However, despite its gnarled playback in her head, she can understand what it’s telling her, and what it said seemed so appealing to her.

At this moment, everything she prepared to tell Hilda back at home, and the gift she bought for her; it all almost felt worthless. She felt her anxiety consuming her to the utmost extent it could, and she felt like she couldn’t hold herself back any longer. She got out of her car and slammed the door shut. She slowly walked across the pier, to make sure that she was within Hilda’s range of earshot, and then she breathed in deeply, getting ready to say what may be the most difficult thing she’d ever have to say in her life.

“... Hilda?” Johanna asked with a soft, pleading, almost defeated tone left in her voice.

Hearing the ever so familiar, affectionate voice calling out her name in such a low, heartsick way was enough to get Hilda to gasp and turn her back to find Johanna, calmly standing there. Hilda couldn’t tell what to make out of Johanna’s face. The daughter wished she could properly decipher the swirling range of emotions laid across the mother’s face. To her, it seemed like Johanna’s wide, unblinking eyes screamed out an endless longing to see her daughter again, like they’d been separated for longer than the afternoon and evening. In contrast, her small, ajar mouth made her look speechless, as if she were actively struggling to verbalize her feelings towards herself for effectively ditching her without warning. Hilda knew what she did today was awful, and seeing such a foreboding worry all over her mum’s face reminded her exactly why she didn’t want to come home.

On the other side of the staredown, Johanna’s heart crippled seeing her daughter in her current state. Her hair was an absolute disaster, with loose ends splitting up in all possible directions. The space in her eyes was as ample as it was on the night she nearly had to say goodbye to Twig. Her eyes were also slightly reddened around the sclera, with thin and dark streaks flowing from the eyes downward, affirming Johanna’s theory about seeing her crying earlier. Her mouth was rapidly fluttering between being sewn shut and halfway opened. She looked like she desperately wanted to tell her something; be it an extensive apology, or a deep and personal secret she’s been hiding for years. If she could be honest, she’s just as surprised at herself for the way she started the conversation as Hilda was. She had so much pent up energy inside of her that the voice told her she had to release, energy the voice seemed to have aimed directly towards Hilda. So what happened for all of her energy to turn into a whimper in the end?

“M- Mum? What’re you doing out here so late?” Hilda asked with a shaky, uneven rattle in the voice. This was the first sentence Johanna heard Hilda speak since she left for school in the morning, and the inflexion in her tone all but confirmed to herself that she is in as much mental turmoil as Johanna feared all day.

“Looking all over the city trying to find out where you’ve been all afternoon!” Johanna tried her hardest to maintain her cool while answering her daughter’s question. She was aware that the last thing Hilda should hear right now is the enraged accent of a worried-sick parent. The same enraged accent that would remind Hilda of the previous mistakes she’s made in her life, including those that have put her own mum’s life on the line. However, her attempts to suppress her anger only furthered the fight between her heart and the voice intoxicating her brain, gradually deteriorating her composure as her sentences became progressively interrupted by restrained chokes and sobs. “It’s one thing to not spend time back at home Hilda, but do you even slightly understand how horrified I was all evening? I’ve had to handle nearly losing you in Trolberg several times since we moved here! And tonight, having to look all over for you by myself without even a single call telling me what you planned on doing has been the most terrifying night in my whole life! Why did you run off this time? What’s gotten into you tonight?!”

Hilda spent nearly a minute trying to express her answer in a way that Johanna could understand, fearing that one wrong slip would only further enhance her mum’s blistering distress. As all of the options in her head came to a screeching halt, Hilda felt her emotional resistance completely shatter, and did the only thing she had the strength to do anymore: she fell to her knees on the dock, heaved the sleeves of her uniform up to her face, and sobbed her lungs out.

To Johanna, seeing her daughter entirely break down in front of her, encased in a wall of her own shame and remorse, was unprecedented. She knew that Hilda was an emotionally driven soul, one who’d rather listen to her heart and conscience over her brain. She’s seen Hilda cry before, mostly over the bigger changes set in her life after moving to Trolberg, but she couldn’t remember the last time Hilda had completely collapsed into a mess of her grief and tears. To herself, it’s as if every emotional ache that came over her daughter since they moved to the city had caved in over her, and she wasn’t able to carry the weight anymore. In just a few brief seconds, all of the ire that the voice in her brain created that polluted her heart faded away until she felt nothing but sympathy and fear. Johanna was no longer a distressed parent desperately hoping that their kid was alive; she was just a mum. A mum whose job it was to console her sad, crying child. As her daughter calmed down, she slowly approached her to try and close her into a warm hug, but as she began to walk over:

“M-mum…” Hilda uttered, barely audible over her hiccups and stuttering. “I’m sorry. I’m s-so sorry about everything...”

Johanna steadily regained her composure and repeated, “‘Everything’? What do you mean ‘everything’?”

“It’s just- I… I always wish I could be better, that I could be the daughter you always wanted.” This thought clearly pained Hilda, as she started softly weeping again near the end of her sentence.

Johanna was absolutely appalled at Hilda’s statement about herself. Despite the shock at what she heard, she couldn’t muster up the energy to raise her voice any higher: “‘Better daughter’? Hilda, what on Earth gave you the implication that I was unhappy with you? That I’d ever want you to be different?”

“W-well, it’s…” was the most she could reply with before an ice-cold lump formed in her throat. She repeated the same two words over, beginning to sound like a broken record to her mum.

“Hilda, darling, don’t force yourself. I know this hurts right now, but I need you to…” Before she finished her sentence, she was with a fierce shout right towards her.

“IT’S ALL OF THIS, MUM! I’M TIRED OF FEELING LIKE A THREAT TO EVERYBODY AROUND ME!”

A tense silence filled the air, only kept alive by Hilda’s exhausted huffing and puffing. As if a switch had been flipped in her head, she started to pour her heart out like never before.

“Ever since the day we moved here, I’ve always been seen as the ‘crazy kid with her odd mum’ to nearly everybody we’ve met! In our time here; my inane interests have ruined the parents' night at the school, almost got David arrested for a hundred years, nearly made me permanently steal both his and your souls, utterly crushed Frida’s self-esteem, released Jellybean out into the streets of an already scared-stiff city, and well-nigh killed us two and my closest friends several times over! And none of that includes the dozens of little ways I’ve mucked up peoples’ lives in that time! You wanted us to move to Trolberg to live in a more safe society and help me gain more close friends, but every time I feel like I get so close to truly gaining the trust of the only two human friends I got, the plans I have backfired and completely ruin the trust I had! It’s the reason why I was so horrified to tell you about my complete lack of any Sparrow Scouts badges! It’s the reason why I’m always so anxious to let you know how my days go! It’s the reason why I feel so isolated every time something goes wrong in my life! Trolberg taught me that I can only ‘fit in’ with the crowd if I conform to their standards of living and act as they do. If I continue to behave my usual self with my strange interests, I may as well deserve to be mocked and feared by everyone around me! The only reason I feel remotely safe within the walls of the city anymore is that I have a few people like you, David and Frida, and the librarian who’ve taught me that it’s even slightly to be who I am here!” It was at this point that Hilda began to lose the malice remaining in her voice. Her speaking slowed down and was more frequently interrupted by loud sniffles and brief chokes. “Mum, I know you always told me to ignore the people who judge me for my differences, but it’s never been easy to do. Not when so much of this city treats me like an evil force that doesn’t deserve to live happily. Not when they constantly drag you down with me, despite every little thing you’ve done to better me over the years. Not… not when so much of what this city stands against makes me who I am.” By now, Johanna could hardly bear the pain in her heart as Hilda continued to rip herself to pieces, but she still let her finish. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t adjust to Trolberg the way you wanted me to. I’m sorry that I keep risking my life and running off without letting you know. I- I’m… I’m so sorry that I can’t ever be the person you wished I was...”

By the time Hilda finished her words, she didn’t have the energy left to cry anymore. She put her knees back on the ground, and visibly braced herself for the surely certain berating she was expecting from her mum. Instead, she felt her whole body become enveloped by a heated force. She opened her eyes, looked up, and noticed Johanna. It was the tightest, warmest hug she had ever gotten from the mum in her whole life, but her face still expressed fear and even… betrayal?

“Hilda, listen to me,” started Johanna with the sternest tone she’s ever spoken with to her daughter. “Have you truly been feeling this way about yourself?”

“Mh-hm,” Hilda nodded slightly up and down. The grip around her toughened slightly more.

“I never, EVER, want you to say those words about yourself ever again! You have absolutely nothing to be sorry about. Even if you truly believe what you’ve been told about yourself, then I deserve to apologize just as much.” Hilda was quite stunned with what she was hearing, but let her mum continue. “Sweetie, I never wanted to make you feel like you didn’t belong with other people, nor did I want you to remotely change yourself to fit in better. Of course, I love you for the way you are now, and I wouldn’t change you for the world. Who made you think I’d ever hate you for staying the way you are?”

“... It’s silly, Mum.”

“No, it’s not, Hilda. If you’re this hurt by what you’re told, I will do anything to make sure you’ll be okay.”

“... Please, promise me you won’t laugh?”

Johanna took an arm out of her grasp and reenacted her old Sparrow Scout salute. “I wholeheartedly promise.”

“Okay. Mum, you see… There's this voice in my head, and it tells me that everything I’m doing is wrong. Even when nobody else is around to judge me, the voice speaks to me, and it’s always hard to ignore. It tells me that I drive my friends away with my dangerous antics and that I don’t belong with someone as patient and calming as you. It tells me that I can always be better for you, but still reminds me that there’s nothing I can do to truly make you happy and that I will always be underwhelming to you.” Johanna was shocked to hear that her daughter shared the same struggle with her head that she did. Her own voice told her that no one else would understand how she felt, so she kept quiet about what she heard for months. “I know, it sounds ridiculous, but there’s no better way I can describe it, and it hurts so much sometimes.”

A couple of minutes of ambient silence passed, and Johanna heard a familiar tune.

_“Well, now what are you gonna do? Here you are with your daughter, who you say you love so much. She’s now a sobbing mess, afraid of people just like you. What can you possibly do now to save face? Say you love her for the thousandth time? Keep hugging her until the sun comes up, and things will magically get better?”_

“... I’m done,” she whispered very quietly to herself. She decided she could no longer keep it in. She let go of her daughter and broke her silence. “Hilda?”

“Hm?” She wearily looked up to her mum’s face.

“... I have a voice in my head too.” The immediate stunned expression on her daughter’s face gave her a small boost in her confidence. She was finally ready to tell her. “The voice I hear is a lot like yours. It says to me that I’m an inadequate mother and that you don’t love me as much as you say you do. It tells me that all I’m doing anymore is pushing you away and that it’d be all my fault if you ever got hurt. It lets me know that I’m only endangering your life every time I leave you out to go adventuring on your own, while it also notes that I’m an overbearing and know nothing about you. The voice wants me to think that you hate me, and think your life would be better off if I just disappeared.”

Hilda expressed her own appalling at her mum for the way she berated herself. “But- but that’s impossible, not after everything you’ve done to make my life better every day! You helped me understand what and who I love in my life. You’re always there at the end of every day to give me a great embrace and a soft bed to sleep happily in every night. You punish me and act harshly on me because you know my personal limits better than I sometimes do, and want me to live a long, grateful life. No mum who does all of that for their daughter is remotely inadequate!”

Johanna couldn’t help to wear a small, sheepish grin again and shed a couple of tears at Hilda’s statements, happy to hear her daughter’s reassuring words to her. “I could say the same thing about what your voice says to you, angel. Your interests aren’t a burden to anyone, and your differences don’t make you crazy in the slightest. Unfortunately, the voice you hear is very powerful, and it’s so easy to believe what it tells you, even when you know that it’s lying to you.”

Starting to feel afraid again, Hilda sniffled slightly again and asked, “Then why is it here, mum? Why would your mind want to work against you like this?”

Johanna gave a deep sigh and somberly responded, “I don’t quite know, dear. Your brain is a complicated little contraption, and it won’t always work as intended. Nobody’s head is perfect, and some people struggle against their thoughts more than others. That’s why we have each other, though. Do you truly believe in your heart that David, Frida, Alfur, I, or even the Woodman would ever abandon you over who you are?“

Hilda turned her head to Johanna and her pupils shrunk fast: “Of course I don’t. I love you all more than anything else in the world!”

“And does this voice try to convince you otherwise?”

“... Yes. Quite a lot actually,” Hilda shamefully admitted while pointing her head down again.

“Honestly Hilda,” Johanna softly whispered for her attention again, “I think you’re doing a great job already dealing with your voice. It takes a lot of strength to separate it from the feelings in your heart, and it’s even more difficult to admit that it’s wrong. The voice is still a part of you, after all, and I’m sure it must be painful to actively fight with a part of yourself you don’t like.”

Hilda gave a brief scoff at the interesting comparison Johanna brought up. “Yeah, when you phrase it like that, it makes sense.”

Happy to see a true grin on her daughter’s face for the first time today, Johanna reached down and gave Hilda one more soft squeeze tonight. “I promise, you’re gonna be okay Hilda. We’ll both be okay. If the voice comes back, and you feel like you can’t fight it alone, you always have your friends to help pick you up. Come to think of it, I’ve learned a lot about myself all day. I think we both have a lot of work to do, but for tonight, you’re all I need to feel happy.”

Hilda got closer to her mum’s grasp and responded, “You’re all I need too. I love you so much, mum.”

“I love you too, sweetheart.”

For a few more minutes, Johanna and Hilda embraced each other’s company and watched the remainder of the sunset as it finally made its way across the horizon. Unbeknownst to them, however, was a sudden, pure-white flash that came in behind them. Johanna was the first to turn around and notice standing near the other end of the dock: “Tontu?”

“Oh, uh… hi girls.” The short, hairy Nisse waived his right hand up and lowered an object he was carrying with his other hand.

Hilda was the first to ask, “Okay, what are you doing out here so late?”

“Well, Alfur told me where Mom had gone off to and why dinner was arriving so late. I was starting to get impatient after waiting an hour in a silent, empty room, so I started travelling through the Nowhere Spaces all over Trolberg to look for you. I actually just popped out in between these floorboards I’m standing on.

“Okay…” Johanna responded, noting the object the Nisse was carrying. “And is that my camera you’re carrying?"

“Huh, this thing? Oh yeah, I guess this is what it’s called. I found it sitting on your desk the other day and wanted to see what the big deal about these things was. I personally don’t see it, you can have it back now,” Tontu finished as he tossed the camera into Johanna’s hands. She barely caught the camera given how dark it had become.

She took the still-developing picture out of the bottom of the device and shook it around a bit, wondering just what Tontu decided to take a photo of. It was a bit too dark to see under the night sky, but she took the photo under a nearby streetlight and was blown away by what she saw. In the frame were Johanna and Hilda, sitting at the end of the pier, watching the last bit of the sunset, cuddled closely together just minutes after they made their promises that they’d come to each other more when things got dark. She wasn’t anticipating such a perfect photo to come out from this night, so she lifted Tontu off the ground and gave him a big bearhug.

“Woah, Woah, easy there Mom! I’m still young here, and you’re kinda crushing me,” he stated with his breath evaporating as he went on.

“Oh, sorry about that Tontu,” said Johanna, who gently placed him down. Tontu was dizzily wandering around for a couple of seconds before straightening his balance. “I just know exactly what I want to do with this picture.”

“Well, I’m sure that’ll be nice. Do you two need a quick trip back home?”

Hilda answered his question, “Thanks for the offer Tontu, but Mum’s car is right up ahead. I’ll just ride home with her.”

“Well, alright then, if you say so. Goodnight.” Tontu then promptly slipped in between the aforementioned floorboards where a bright purple glow formed and his signature jingling sound echoed with the low waves.

With both mother and daughter staring at the spot where Tontu slipped away, Johanna paused the silence and held out her hand towards the daughter: “Well, Hilda. I think we’ve had enough excitement for one day. Are you ready to head home now?”

Hilda swiftly reached up to her mum’s hand and grabbed onto it, responding: “Yeah mom, let’s get going.”

Satisfied by her daughter’s answer, Johanna grabbed on to Hilda’s hand and led them both back to her car.


	5. The Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the way back home, Hilda finds a little box on the floor of the car. Johanna explains just what this box is and why it matters so much.

Hilda and Johanna both hopped into their respective seats at the front of the car, graciously ready to head home and spend some more time together. Johanna had started the engine, but before she put her foot on the pedal, she overheard a small, crinkled - _thunk_ \- from the floor beneath Hilda’s seat.

“Huh, what is this?” Hilda curiously asked. Overwhelmed by the emotional weight put onto her at the dock, Johanna completely forgot about the gift she bought for Hilda back at the hardware store. She turned her head to her left and saw Hilda picking up the bag, getting ready to reach her hand inside. Johanna figured that she may as well tell Hilda what that is.

“That, Hilda, is a special present I picked up for you. While I was looking around for you earlier in the evening, I ended up parking over at the hardware store without meaning to. I noticed this device and got a closer look at it. This is a little machine designed to produce soothing noises that can calm down the person listening to them. Most of the sounds are simple things like a heartbeat and white noise, but one of the noises is that of the woods. I heard birds chirping, trees rustling in the wind, and other peaceful tones that reminded me of our old home. Alfur told me that a little act of kindness can make the world for the right people. I knew how bad you tend to feel when you start to get homesick, so I figured this little thing could help you out. It will let you know that no matter how much things change in your life, not everything you love has to leave you; as well as give you a small piece of what you love that can take you anywhere. It’s not the biggest gift out there, and I know that the Sonstansil Tree is only blooming a month from now, but I figured you’d appreciate this.

By the time Johanna finished explaining the gift, Hilda started sniffling and tearing up again. This time, the tears weren’t of grief. Her tears reflected just how happy she was to have a gracious mum that would do anything big and small to make her daughter remember the good days. She placed the box down and jumped up to give Johanna another great big hug. “Thank you so much, mum! I absolutely love it!”

If this were any other scenario, Johanna would’ve likely ratted her daughter out for standing up on her car seat, but for tonight, she let Hilda have it. Tonight’s been draining for both of them, and Johanna was glad that her little impulse-buy is already meaning so much to Hilda. “I’m glad you like it, sweetie,” she softly replied. “Do you wanna test this thing out when we get home?”

“Yes, please!”

“Then let’s get going.” Hilda sat back down on her seat and buckled her seatbelt, signalling to her mum that she’s ready to get going. Johanna took note of Hilda's gesture and started driving back home.

* * *

It was about 21:30 before Hilda came back to her home, barging through the door in unimaginable excitement to test out her new sound machine, with her mum following behind a few seconds later. “Careful Hilda,” Johanna advised, “Our neighbours are probably starting to go to sleep.”

Twig was sleeping on the side of the sofa before Hilda came back. He did not welcome the sudden shift in volume and woke up with a loud whimper after the door slammed open. His grumpiness didn’t last long, however, as he noticed Hilda’s shape across the room. He quickly leapt off the couch and into Hilda’s arms, nuzzling and licking her all over her cheek. “Hey, there boy! I missed you so much too.” Johanna crouched down to pet the deerfox on top of his head once more.

“Are you ready to try out your sound machine, dear?” Johanna readily asked her daughter.

“Oh, right.” Hilda let Twig go and jolted up at the mention of her gift, and Johanna directed herself and him back to the sofa. Hilda walked over to the nearest electrical outlet in the living room, took out the machine from the box, and plugged the cord into the open socket. It took her a few minutes to read through the instruction pamphlet and mess around with the buttons and dials, but she understood what to do after a little bit. She pressed the power button, turned the volume up, and spun the noise dial to the icon with the trees.

In a few seconds, the usual Trolberg noises of cars passing by and crows cawing faded away and were replaced by the sounds Johanna said she heard: leaves rustling, wind blowing, and soft birds chirping. Treasuring the old, familiar sounds; Hilda closed her eyes, envisioned the views of her old home, and tiny tracks of tears began to form once again. Hilda was starting to feel like after one of the lowest points of her life had hit, things truly were going to be okay.

“So, do you like it, Hilda?” Johanna asked, keeping her voice low as to not overpower the sounds coming from the machine. She already had a heavy suspicion that Twig enjoyed the gift, as he was already stretching and yawning near her lap.

Sitting back on the couch, Hilda gave Johanna another big hug. “Yes Mum, it’s perfect. I can’t possibly thank you enough for getting this!”

“Well darling, I’m glad this means so much to you. I knew this would make you feel so much better.” Johanna felt Hilda resting on her lap too, cuddling alongside Twig. She took her hand and caressed it through her daughter’s hair. After what they’ve all gone through today, being able to sit down and just enjoy a soft moment like this was all she possibly could have asked for.

* * *

After fifteen more minutes passed, Johanna saw the lights suddenly turn off. She turned back at the entrance and saw Tontu halfway-hidden in a closeby space, holding his hand out towards Johanna. She squinted a bit to see Alfur resting on the Nisse's hand. The elf faced Johanna and used an arm to wave towards her, with a sincere look on his face. She assumed that Alfur was telling her “goodnight” without waking the two bodies resting on her. Johanna was flattered by the little act and waved a hand back, whispering “Goodnight you two,” as softly as she could muster.

As the elf and Nisse duo swept back into the open space, Johanna turned back and noticed one more thing, the photo that Tontu took of her and Hilda. She looked at the drawer that her old scrapbook was resting in. One more stray tear rolled down her face as she played through all the memories located in that book again. She knew that the photo lying in front of her would be the start of a new era for the book, and she knows Hilda would be so happy to see it in person again. However, that was for her to think about tomorrow. For now, she just wants to cherish the current moment with the two best things that have happened to her life. She whispered one last thing to them before shutting her eyes for the night.

“Goodnight, my little angels.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeeey, you made it to the end of my first proper fan fiction!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading this little diddy all the way to the end. This whole thing started as a one-shot about Johanna giving Hilda the sound machine to help remind her of her old home. As time went on, however, I built more ideas onto this and had an absolute blast writing this to the end. I'm very proud of how the final product turned out, especially given this is my first time writing any fictional story more than a page or two long. As always, a critique of my work is more than welcome, as I'd love to learn more about better writing if I want to try this whole thing again.
> 
> Before I get going, I need to give a couple of shoutouts:
> 
> Credit to [ pikablob ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pikablob/pseuds/pikablob)and their several headcanons and general writing style serving as the primary inspiration for me to write these fluffy, comforting stories using some of my favourite fictional characters.
> 
> Lots of thanks for the MLP: FiM fanfiction ["Anxiety"](https://www.fimfiction.net/story/137240/anxiety) by user Bad_Seed_72. Their fic gave me an insane understanding on how to respectfully write mental illness in stories and is one that still gives me chills every time I read it. Definitely a must-read for any MLP fans out there.
> 
> Well, that's all I got to say about this. Thank you for reading this, and have a good day!


End file.
